DOWN Guitarist On Next Album: 'It'll Be Like The First Record'

DOWN — the acclaimed New Orleans band featuring CORROSION OF CONFORMITY guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan, drummer Jimmy Bower (EYEHATEGOD, SUPERJOINT RITUAL guitarist),bassist Rex Brown (ex-PANTERA),guitarist Kirk Windstein (CROWBAR),and vocalist Philip Anselmo (SUPERJOINT RITUAL, ex-PANTERA) — is planning on releasing its new full-length studio album by the middle of next year. "I'd say probably late spring or early summer 2010," Keenan told team Sonisphere. "We have six songs left over from the last session. Whether we use them for the album or not, we don't know," added Bower. "Probably not; maybe some parts."

So, what's it going to sound like?

"I think we're going backwards. It'll be like the first record," Pepper told team Sonisphere. "The last two records have been pretty grandiose with a lot of parts and bigger things. This time we're going to go back and have some fun. Two guitar tracks, keep it nice and dry, and focus on simple songwriting like the first album, which still works so well."

Jimmy described it more succinctly: "Go for the throat, dude."

In a recent interview with Holland's FaceCulture, DOWN/ex-PANTERA bassist Rex Brown stated about DOWN's plans for a new studio album, "We have a bunch of stuff left over from the last record. What we wanna do is just go back to a bare-bones approach — get back to good old riffs, and that's the way we're gonna approach this record.

He added, "I think right now heavy riffs are fuckin' in. And it's not that we're following any trend or anything. We went as far as we possibly could with the last record — I mean, that thing was a monster — but we don't wanna go through that period again of taking a year to put it together. For what it was, it was a great record — [it] still is, and always will be. We went really raw on the second one, and then the third one, we really wanted to delve into all kinds of different stuff.

"I'll just put it this way: Phil [Anselmo, vocals] and I have a bunch of ideas that are recorded on tape. And he has three with the band that I played on or Kirk [Windstein, DOWN guitarist] might have played on. So there's like three heavy ones and like... I write a bunch of stuf on acoustic, but that's not gonna happen on this record. We can do that at a different time, and it'll still stand the test of time, I promise you that.

"We can go knock out a record in 15 days or 30 days, or we can... We've just gotta make it right. That's all I can say. I'm not gonna give you a date, I'm not gonna give you a time period or anything. When it comes out, it'll be bad-ass."

DOWN will tour select U.S. markets with the MELVINS in August/September.

DOWN's forthcoming CD will tentatively be produced by Dave Fortman, a former member of UGLY KID JOE who has also worked with such artists as MUDVAYNE and EVANESCENCE.